The Hall Law Firm is now involved in several guardianships in south-central Missouri. A guardianship can be an excellent tool for a Grandma or Grandpa to use to keep the children in the family when Mom or Dad has made mistakes that keep them from properly parenting their children.

If you think a guardianship could help your situation, please give us a call or write us an email.

The Iowa Supreme Court has just unanimously given homosexuals the right to marry in Iowa by declaring a state law prohibiting it unconstitutional. In doing so they have basically declared that all Iowa citizens have equal rights to sin and commit crimes against humanity under their state constitution.

Is the United States a nation of laws and under law, or does might make right? So far every fact known to us indicates that Barack Obama is unqualified to serve as President of the United States. Numerous lawsuits have been filed asserting this, but all have been dismissed by courts stating that the plaintiff, the one filing the lawsuit, did not have legal standing to bring the action at law. So, Barack Obama, even though he has never shown that he is qualified to be President, now serves as the 44th President of the United States.

But, many earnest citizens throughout our country are not giving up their legitimate cause. The latest effort I heard about is something called a “Quo Warranto” action being brought to court in the District of Columbia. The suit has been filed by Orly Taitz, a California attorney.

According to WorldNetDaily, Orly Taitz, is “working on several of the civil actions, [and] also announced she has filed another Quo Warranto case in the District of Columbia, where, she told WND, the statutes acknowledge that procedure.”

WND’s report continues, “John Eidsmoe, an expert on the U.S. Constitution now working with the Foundation on Moral Law, said the demand is a legitimate course of action. “She basically is asking, ‘By what authority’ is Obama president,” he told WND. “In other words, ‘I want you to tell me by what authority. I don’t really think you should hold the office.’ “”

The question is, when will America’s courts finally begin to rule by law again instead of by political persuasion, which is nothing more than “might makes right?”

You can read the full report on WorldNetDaily by clicking here: Obama Lawsuits.

Glenn Hall established The Hall Law Firm office in Salem Missouri in the Spring of 2001 and the Houston Missouri in the fall of 2007. His son, Jaired, now runs the Houston office while Glenn remains at the firm’s Salem location. Prior to moving to Salem Glenn practiced law in his own firm in Kansas City, Missouri for twelve years.

The Hall Law Firm practices in most areas of law. Call us today for a consultation or quick piece of good advice!

Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has recently posted this article expressing concern about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC]. The fear is that the CRC would permit judges, and possibly even a committee of internationals sitting in Geneva, to probe into every area of the parent-child relationship and make determinations based on the “best interest of the child.”

The U.S. has yet to ratify this over a decade old treaty, but there is fear that under the new heavily Democrat Senate, it could be ratified in the near future.

If the treaty really allows the feared state (and even worse, international) intrusion into parent-child relationships, then it is not merely home schoolers who should worry, but every parent who, whether for religious or other reasons, believes that she has inherent authority to direct the moral, physical, emotional, and educational upbringing of her children.

As with so many other topics I have discussed in this blog, the issue comes down to one of authority. Who has authority over children–the state or parents? And if the state–is it the state governments or the federal government? If the Senate ratifies the CRC, it will have the force of a federal statute, and constitutionally, federal statutes are supreme over state laws.

But the CRC should never be imposed as law in the United States both because in an absolute sense, it surpasses the inherent authority granted to the state and in a legal sense, it is unconstitutional. The Constitution does not give the federal government authority to regulate the parent child relationship. This is why we have state laws governing divorce, child custody, child abuse, etc., rather than federal laws. However, as we know, the Supreme Court has allowed the Federal government to overstep its constitutional bounds in countless ways. It is possible that our current Supreme Court would rule the CRC unconstitutional based on the fact that the Constitution does not grant this authority to the Federal government, but there is a real risk that it would not.

And the risk that it would not leads me again to suggest that it might be a good thing that the Supreme Court upholds what it calls Substantive Due Process rights (which aren’t in the Constitution at all). One of these rights is the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. This right has proved impotent in many situations (such as when parents seek a constitutional right to opt their children out of certain classes in public schools), but it has been used effectively, even as recently as 2000, to prevent a judge from granting a grandparent custody rights against the wishes of a fit parent. See Troxel v. Granville.

It appears, then, that based on substantive due process rights, the Supreme Court still states that, as a constitutional matter, a fit parent can override a judge’s determination of the best interests of a child. The fear of the CRC is that a judg’es determination of the best interest of a child could and would override various decisions, such as relating to education and religion, of fit parents.

As long as the Supreme Court holds this view, the CRC would hopefully lose all or much of its sting.

[next post to discuss the concept of the Best Interest of the Child, the interesting situation of divorce, and various issues of authority relevant to these cases.]

At WorldNetDaily you can read about a new move afoot to force “all new lawyers to swear they won’t let their personal religious perspective on homosexuality affect their representation of any client.” According to this report, “the [Arizona] state bar is considering a major change to its existing oath that requires lawyers to affirm they won’t “permit considerations of gender, race, age, nationality, disability or social standing to influence my duty of care” to clients. The proposal in Arizona is to add “sexual orientation” to that list. “

Such a change to the lawyer’s oath would subject an attorney to possible bar complaints and legal discipline, including disbarring, if he refused to represent gay clients or refused to take certain legal actions on behalf of an existing gay client. Many ethical medical doctors have already had to deal with problems like this when they attended medical schools that required them to perform abortions as part of their medical training. If they performed an abortion in order to pass a medical school class, then they were forced to violate and defile their conscience.

Now the same heavy-handed immoral tactics appear on the horizon concerning attorneys throughout the United States. We need to understand exactly why this issue is so important with great clarity.

First, these actions attempt to force attorneys to accept, represent, affirm, and fight for the interests of a class of people which many attorneys believe to be involved in immoral and evil behavior.

Second, acting according to such an oath would force many attorneys to represent clients whose objectives contradict the attorney’s moral conviction. For example, I have represented many men and women in custody disputes regarding their children. I have never knowingly represented a lesbian or homosexual in an action attempting to secure custody rights for her or him. In fact, when I was legislator in the 1990’s I introduced a bill that would have made foster care by homosexuals illegal in Missouri. I have a very simple and moral reason for these actions, I do not believe that it is in the best interests of a child to be raised or nurtured by homosexuals.

Finally, I believe it would be appalling to be forced by law to do that with which I morally disagreed. In fact, I would resign my license to practice law before I would violate my conscience. It would be better to farm the land, build tables, or plumb houses than to violate my conscience by actively helping destroy society through a willingness to promulgate and encourage immoral and evil behavior.

Look around. Evil ascends and becomes acceptable while loud voices and lawless laws condemn and destroy those committed to morality. We who believe in right and wrong must stand up now while we can. If we don’t, “night comes when no one can work.”

Welcome to the Hall Law Firm’s new web page. We hope that you will find all the information you need to quickly decide if you think we can help you with your special needs. Please call us today for even more information. You can reach Jaired at 417-967-0066 at our Houston office and Glenn at 573-729-2229 at our Salem office.